Review: Flora by Yoojin Kim
A pop-up guide for your little outdoor explorer.
Someone once said to me, “the days are long but the years are short.”
This didn’t really resonate with me until I had kids. Time starts to do strange things when it stops being entirely your own. It becomes sacred and wasteful all at once. Ten minutes of crying at midnight seems like an hour. Planning a quick supermarket trip takes half a day. Thirty extra minutes beneath the blankets in the morning feels like you’ve reached that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
The days are long when they’re filled with never-ending mess, tired armfuls of toys, snacks made then wasted, abandoned plans with friends, bottles and nappy changes.
But the years? The years are short.
Just like that, my Little Miss has turned one.
A year ago she had barely any hair, she could barely hold up her own head and she’d fill her dad and I with waves of panic every day at 3pm when her witching hour (hours?!) began.
Now she rocks her golden curls. She’s independent. She’s learning words like “bubye”. And she’s just started throwing her first tantrums, which is a wild turn of events. But despite the tantrums, I keep telling everyone she’s wise beyond her single year. I insist that she’s clever. My heart explodes with pride when she walks (read: stumbles) towards me and it literally BURNS when she kisses me… on my back?! I don’t know where she learned that, but I’ll take it. A thousand times over, I’ll take it.
Her dad and I wanted to get her a book for her first birthday that honoured her first year of growth. We wanted something for her shelf of keepsakes that would stand out.
Because, after all, you only turn one once.
We came across Flora.
Flora is the culmination of a trifecta of talent. Yoojin Kim, paper engineer; Nicole Yen, writer; and Kathryn Selbert, illustrator. This female-led pop-up production literally jumps out of the page, guiding readers through a milieu of gardens: domestic, wet, cultivated and contained. Bees are buzzing, frogs are jumping, and at the final turn, a rustic greenhouse unfolds, containing a riot of colourful flowers.
In this pop-up book, the garden is not the background of the story, but the lead — and just like her real-life muse, this character is far from bland.
Yen’s words explain to little readers how there’s so much more to a garden than meets the eye. Below the picturesque surface of petals and colourful palettes is a hive of activity, all of it made possible by the garden.
The theme of organic machinery is brought to life in the delicate technical art of Kim’s paper engineering.
We bought this book for our little bloomer, and I think it’s the perfect gift for a milestone birthday. When choosing gifts for kids, it’s extra special when you can find something that isn’t just about instant gratification. I love to find things that will bring them value, and will last them beyond that fleeting birthday celebration. Flora is perfect because it not only teaches little explorers about the amazing world outside, it’s so beautiful they’ll want to treasure it, so that they can revisit it, again and again.
If you want that ‘wow’ reaction, Flora will make the adults in the room swoon, too!
I couldn’t recommend this book enough for your bookshelf of keepsakes. A tip though: try to keep it on the top shelf, because curious little fingers could quickly damage the delicate pop-up designs.
